Drive On
by Carrie L
Summary: A little AU episode tag to the Season 7 episode Drive, where Tom and B'Elanna get married. Now continued, because I am genetically incapable of leaving well enough alone. Don't worry, I've already written an ending. And oh yes, there will be angst. J/C
1. Chapter 1

They laughed their way up the corridor, loosing the snug collars of their dress uniforms as they recalled B'Elanna's shriek when Tom picked her up and carried her into their gaily decorated honeymoon shuttlecraft.

"Care for a nightcap?" Janeway asked as they came even with her door.

"Twist my arm," Chakotay answered and followed her inside.

She produced Irish whisky from some mysterious source and brought the bottle and two glasses to where he sat on the cushions by the viewport, one leg bent in front of him so he could watch the slow drift of the shuttle away from Voyager's protective hull. Janeway followed his gaze with her eyes and smiled.

"They're so happy," she said with a contented sigh as she settled in across from Chakotay and offered him a glass. "It's good to see the crew that way, after everything we've been through together."

"It is indeed," Chakotay agreed. "To the newlyweds," he toasted. They clinked glasses and their eyes met in satisfaction as they both sipped.

"Seven tells me that B'Elanna took offense at something she said about Tom earlier this week," Janeway said.

"Our B'Elanna?" Chakotay grinned. "Never. How did Seven manage to insult Tom this time?"

Janeway shook her head. "Oh no, it wasn't an insult. Seven told B'Elanna that she was trying to improve her relationship with Tom."

Chakotay made an amused face at the bottom of his glass. "Improve their _relationship_? I bet B'Elanna loved that."

"Oh yes. Seven also told B'Elanna that Tom was a very competent officer and a skilled pilot. She came to me because she didn't understand the hostility she has noticed from B'Elanna since then."

Chakotay lifted his eyes to his companion, bemused. "She didn't understand that? We forget how short a time it's been since she left the collective. But if it motivated B'Elanna to close the deal with Tom, maybe we should be grateful to Seven for the nudge."

Janeway lowered her glass to the cushion and ran a finger around the rim. Her eyes flickered between the glass and Chakotay's face.

"She also told me that _you_ have many admirable qualities."

Chakotay coughed on a swallow of whisky. "Me? Didn't she ever notice Harry following her around like a lost puppy? What does she want with me?"

Janeway took a long breath, let it out, set her glass on the small table beside them. "At the time, I wondered if it was a little test."

"What sort of test?"

Her eyes snapped back to see if he was teasing, but Chakotay kept a perfectly straight face.

"To see if I would react with the same hostility B'Elanna showed … when Seven admired Tom."

Chakotay held very still. "And did you?" he said in a tone far milder than his taut body language.

Janeway let a half smile move across her face. "I told her you do have many admirable qualities."

"Why thank you. I admire you very much myself."

Their fingers tangled together on the cushion and both stared at the knot their hands had made. Finally, Janeway spoke.

"What Seven said … I couldn't tell her that you were spoken for."

Chakotay tightened his grip on her hand. "Yes, you could."

When Janeway raised her eyes again, they held tears. "You told me once that we had plenty of time. I've wondered more than once if that time had run out."

"Kathryn." Chakotay put a hand to her cheek and stroked her temple with his thumb. "Are you trying to tell me that Seven made both you and B'Elanna jealous in the same week?"

That drew a full smile. "Just a tiny bit."

"So now if I propose, you'll say yes too?"

Her mouth fell open. "I didn't - " she faltered and he laughed.

"I was joking. I'd settle for a kiss."

Janeway took another deep breath, closed the distance, and placed her lips fully on his for a long, slow, probing kiss. As they broke away, he whispered,

"You can marry me next week."

They both burst into laughter. She fell into his arms and he pulled her against his chest, solid and secure, as if they'd done this a hundred times before. He kissed the top of her head and she nuzzled against his warmth.

"Commander Chakotay has many admirable qualities," Janeway announced in a pitch-perfect imitation of Seven.

Chakotay laughed aloud as he pulled Janeway up onto his lap and made ready to kiss her again.

"And I intend to show you all of them."

(Now continued ...)


	2. Chapter 2

Chakotay had insisted on a week. Janeway couldn't believe it on the night of Tom and B'Elanna's wedding, when he'd carefully extricated himself from their embrace, stood up quickly, and said good night.

" _Good night_?" she repeated, taken aback. A minute earlier he'd been holding her against him by the effective leverage of his big hand on her behind. This was a major change in direction.

"I don't want you to wake up and see me and have any regrets," he told her, still panting a little. Janeway sat balanced on the edge of the cushion, cheeks flushed, hair tousled, lips slightly parted in astonishment. Chakotay seemed to waver toward her on the balls of his feet for an instant before he regained his balance and took a determined step backward.

Janeway looked back and forth as if casting for words. "I wouldn't … no. No, you're right. We should give ourselves a little time to cool off. How about tomorrow night we -"

"A week," Chakotay said firmly. "I want to give it a week. We'll both have time to think it over and decide how we want to handle this, with each other, with the crew. We'll make rational decisions. We'll go in with our eyes open."

Janeway considered, then cocked her head at him. "You've thought about this already."

Chakotay nodded and tucked his hands behind his back. "I've thought we could wind up where we are now pretty easily. But the next thing I always see – well, not exactly the _next_ thing, but soon after – is you telling me that it was all a mistake. And then I see the end of the closeness we've always had. I don't think I could take that."

This response was so maddeningly, essentially Chakotay that Janeway almost laughed. She dropped her head, then raised it, looked at him with a face full of compassion, and sighed. "I hope I'd never do that to you, but I can't say that your fears are completely misplaced. All right. A week it is. And during that week …?"

Her question hung on the air.

"Business as usual. No dinners in quarters, and whatever we need to discuss, we just sit in your ready room with coffee and tea and take care of it professionally like we always do."

Janeway listened carefully. "Would it be appropriate to consult with anyone else? You know that I value Tuvok's counsel."

"Absolutely. Talk to Tuvok. We know he'll be discreet."

"Very well." Janeway rose to her feet. "Then, a week from tonight?"

"I would be delighted if you would join me for dinner in my quarters." He glanced appreciatively at her disheveled dress uniform. "Casual dress."

"Agreed." Janeway put out her hand to shake on it.

Chakotay looked down at the hand, then at the woman attached to it, swallowed, and took another step backward.

"Good night, Kathryn," he said in a low voice and nearly bolted for the door.


	3. Chapter 3

Standing at the door of Chakotay's quarters a few hours short of exactly one week later, wearing a dress, carrying a bottle of wine, and trying not to mind that two ensigns on a maintenance assignment had just greeted her with broad smiles, Janeway had to acknowledge to herself that the discomfort in her stomach was nothing more or less than a bad case of nerves. She couldn't think of the last time she'd felt this way.

Tuvok had given his blessing. "Given the length and unusual nature of the journey, it is only logical, and the two of you are well suited," he had told her as soon as she'd managed to blurt out the mortifying question, as if he'd long ago considered and resolved the matter in his own mind. Was she the only one on board, Janeway wondered, who hadn't?

In an awkward but productive ready room meeting, she and Chakotay had decided that Neelix's upcoming Prixin celebration, a little over a month away, would be a natural place for the kiss under the mistletoe that would make their relationship public to the crew without the embarrassment of a shipwide announcement. The intervening weeks would give them a chance to become comfortable in the new relationship before unveiling it. They would consider sharing quarters when that felt natural. They would take it slowly. They would give each other space and spend time maintaining other friendships. It was all very sensible. They had parted with a stiff handshake and wide smiles.

None of this very adult planning kept Janeway from feeling like a girl before her first dance as she stood outside Chakotay's quarters that night. The door opened and Chakotay appeared in the aperture, wearing a soft blue shirt and trousers she hadn't seen since New Earth. Janeway gulped and offered the wine.

"Hi," she said. Nothing more eloquent came to mind.

"Thank you," he said. He took the wine and held it in front of him. "I mean, welcome. Come in." But he didn't move, and the doorway wasn't wide enough for Janeway to step in without shoving past him. Finally she leaned to her left to peer around him at the well-laid table near the viewport.

"Oh, sorry," he said, and stepped aside.

Janeway crossed the room to admire the candles, tablecloth, and several types of food she'd never seen.

"You've outdone yourself," she said. "There was no need to -"

"Of course there was a need. I wanted to share some of the traditions of my people," he told her, then looked abashed for interrupting. They fell silent.

That had been another ready room conversation. After centuries of wandering and maintaining their traditions far from the bones of their ancestors, Chakotay's people took family bonds very seriously indeed.

"One reason I have never taken a mate is that my people mate for life. I could never consider that when my life was a series of upheavals," he had explained.

Janeway lowered her coffee cup to its saucer. "Forgive me, but – what was the relationship with Seska, then? And there have been others. I understood, but I noticed."

Chakotay gave her a sheepish smile. "I try to honor the traditions of my people, Kathryn, but I can't live without affection. I've had affairs, but none of them have risen to the level where I would consider permanence. None of them have been you."

She suddenly wished that command training had included tips on keeping all the blood from rushing to one's face.

"That's what we're really talking about, then? Permanence?"

Chakotay rested his cup on the small table at their knees, then took hers and set it aside too. He took both her hands. "How can it be anything else? Can Voyager's captain and first officer have a casual affair and then move on? It would destroy our working relationship and have a negative impact on the entire crew."

"So we'd be mating for practical reasons," Janeway said coolly. She pulled away slightly but Chakotay held tight to her hands and shook his head vigorously.

"No, no. There are practical reasons, but they aren't my reasons. Let me be perfectly clear, Kathryn. If we were never anything but friends, and you found another mate and were happy, I would be happy for you and dance at your wedding, even though it would hurt. But if we are together – if we make this decision and you let me give you my heart, I will never be able to take it back. I know how I feel about you and I know myself. I've been cautious because we're in a dangerous line of work and there was always the chance that we'd lose you … or you'd find someone else. That's why the other night, I couldn't just take you to bed like I did Seska and the others. You mean too much to me."

When Chakotay looked up from his tense confession, a tear was sliding down Janeway's cheek, just as it had after he told her the angry warrior story on New Earth.

"No one – not either of my fiancés, no one – has ever said anything like that to me," she said and pulled a hand away to wipe her cheek. Her words came haltingly, as if she were forcing out each overly personal syllable. "I've had the same fears. If we were – together – and you were … killed – and there are so many ways it could happen, every day – or if you came to me one day and wanted to see someone else, or just put an end to – to us – I would cope, of course, but – it would be the end of me as a woman. There would be nothing but the captain after that."

And they clung to each other, nothing more, in the quiet of the ready room.

But now there was a new awkwardness between them as Chakotay pulled out her chair and began to explain the dishes and their traditional significance, the stories attached. At one point, he paused and said,

"I hadn't really thought through how unromantic most of these stories are. It's all exile and devastation." And he looked more awkward than ever.

"It's okay," Janeway assured him. "It's what we talked about, sharing our traditions."

Their usual joking manner had departed, replaced by serious exchanges and longer silences than had ever passed between them. At last, the heavy meal consumed without alcohol, because they had agreed that tonight should not take place under the influence as their last encounter had, they sat across from each other with steaming herb tea between them. Chakotay had not suggested a move to the cushions by the viewport as he normally would have, because it felt like too blatant a proposition, after what had happened a week earlier. This was about sharing souls, not sharing a bed.

Instead they shifted uncomfortably on their chairs while he explained the source of the medicinal herbs programmed into this traditional tea.

"It must be a beautiful place," Janeway replied. "I'd like to see it one day."

"I'll take you there," he promised.

After a few more minutes of silence, Janeway sighed and dropped her head to her hand. "This isn't working, Chakotay. It feels more like an arranged marriage than a first date. It's the least romantic thing in the world. I expect to sign a prenuptial contract at the end of the evening rather than have sex."

For the first time that night, they both smiled broadly.

"You're right," he said. "I made it so serious it stopped being any fun."

Janeway folded her napkin and set it on the table. "It wasn't just you. Can we start over? Forget this whole week happened and the next time we're alone, we just do what comes naturally, whatever that is?"

Chakotay nodded. "That sounds like a good idea. I'm sorry, Kathryn. I was trying to do everything right and I just -"

"Killed the mood?" Janeway offered with a smile.

"Completely."

She dropped a light kiss on his cheek as she passed on her way out. Chakotay sat still and waited until the door had closed firmly behind her.

"You are the stupidest man alive," he announced to the empty room.

 _To be continued … and the reviews are fabulous, please don't stop!_


	4. Chapter 4

For the next week, Janeway and Chakotay avoided any discussion of their romantic misfire. On duty, neither could find any appropriate way to address it. Off duty, it was all but inconceivable to approach the other. Janeway thought of raising Chakotay on the comm, or walking to his quarters, and then couldn't come up with even the first word she would speak to him if she did. Chakotay made it as far as Janeway's door, twice, only to turn back out of fear that this time would be as bad as the last and there wouldn't be a third chance.

Still, they carefully maintained their working lunches in the mess hall to avoid any rumors among the crew that the command team wasn't getting along as well as usual. One of those stiff lunches – all maintenance reports and crew reviews - had just ended when B'Elanna commed Chakotay as he and Janeway were walking toward the turbolift on their way back to the bridge.

"Can you assign someone to check out the plasma relays on Deck 5?" B'Elanna said in her all-business tone, surrounded by other voices. "I'm seeing gaps in performance I can't explain."

"I'm on it," Chakotay answered.

"We're right here," Janeway said. "Why don't we check it out ourselves? It would feel good to get my hands dirty for a change. Things have been too quiet lately." Every word she said to him lately seemed to have a double entendre, but it couldn't be helped. They hadn't managed to have a single genuine conversation about the Serious Date, as Janeway had started to think of it, and neither of them seemed to have the nerve to initiate another one. She had no idea how to end the stand-off. All her best management maneuvers seemed hopelessly crude in this situation. Maybe some good old-fashioned hard work would break the ice.

"You want to spend the afternoon crawling through Jeffries tubes?" Chakotay asked with raised eyebrows.

"Tuvok has the bridge well in hand," she said. "Why not?"

"After you then," he said with a gallant gesture toward the nearest hatch, and they were off.

Janeway was putting the cover back on the circuitry after the first repair when she lost her balance and fell back against Chakotay, who sat behind her organizing the tool kit. He caught her easily, but the touch was electric to both of them. Janeway looked up and saw his face close to hers, felt his hand under her back, blocking the fall she would have taken to the deck. Her shivering exhalation drew him to her like a magnet, mouth on hers, other hand sliding up over her uniform jacket to settle firmly on her breast.

She didn't remember unzipping his jacket and slipping a hand under his shirt to caress the warm skin she'd been longing to touch again through interminably long duty shifts the past two weeks. She was, however, aware that his free hand had dropped between her legs. Her whole consciousness was focused on that spot and the fact that she was shamelessly rubbing herself against that hand, in the middle of a duty shift, in a Jeffries tube where they could have company any minute. She couldn't recall reaching her arm around his neck, but there it was when she finally broke away to whisper frantically, with the last shred of self-control,

"We can't. Not here."

Chakotay glanced down at the hard metal decking and ceased the movement of his hand on the fastenings of her trousers. "No, not here," he agreed in a shaky voice.

"My quarters. Shift change."

"I'll be there."

"You'd better go."

Chakotay crawled back to the corridor and spent a few minutes thinking of swimming in cold lakes and confronting Hirogen before he was prepared to open the hatch and walk back to the bridge.

At shift change, he was at Janeway's door as quickly as he could get there from the bridge without actually sprinting. He saw her approaching from the opposite direction with a determined look just as he arrived. Without a word, she entered the access code. It was dark inside, with only the vacuum of space at the viewports, but they didn't bother with lights.

Their bodies met the moment the doors shut. They fell into a frantic kiss, then stumbled toward the bedroom, kicking off boots, leaving inside-out jackets and shirts and socks cast onto furniture as they reeled against shelves and chairbacks, grasping at whatever part of the other was available. A few feet beyond the doorway into the bedroom, Janeway gave up on reaching the bed and pushed Chakotay down into her reading chair.

"Kathryn!" He reached for her and began to protest, but she shoved him back hard against the chair and tugged his shorts free.

"Quiet!" she ordered, bent over, and took him fully into her mouth. Chakotay cried out in wonder, dropped his head onto the soft back of the chair, and stopped struggling. Several ecstatic seconds later, Janeway got to her feet and discarded her last few garments. She settled her knees on either side of Chakotay and lowered herself onto him with a deep groan. He clasped her breast with one hand, her ass with the other, and watched her abandon herself with eyes wide open as they rocked together into a quick mutual climax. Their cries were so loud that each instinctively clapped a hand over the other's mouth.

When the tremors had passed through both of them, she fell against him and he wrapped his arms around her as they gasped for breath.

"That was more like it," she murmured where her lips lay against his shoulder.

"Spirits," Chakotay panted. "I never thought it would be like that."

After a few more deep recovery breaths, Janeway asked without moving, "What were you expecting?"

"You know," he said as one hand gently traced the crenellation of her spine. "Everything according to regulation. By-the-book Janeway."

She smiled against his warm skin. "Is that my reputation? Plain vanilla?"

"You don't have a reputation, not on this ship. I was extrapolating from the way you do everything else."

With an effort, Janeway pushed up to face him, still flushed with her orgasm, breasts bared. "And now what do you think?"

Chakotay struggled for breath. "I think you're the most stunning, incredible woman I've ever seen. I want to kill myself for not doing what we just did every day for the last seven years."

Janeway ran the fingers of her right hand along his left bicep. "Killing yourself would rather defeat the purpose."

"And it would be hard when I'm not sure I can still walk."

She put her lips close to his ear and was gratified at Chakotay's moan when her nipples grazed his chest. "Take a bath with me?"

"Woman, you could ask me to take a naked spacewalk with you and I'd be powerless to say no. So yes to the bath."

"Good," Janeway said and lifted herself away. Chakotay's hand slid down her side and he cried out softly when she slipped from him.

 _To be continued …_


	5. Chapter 5

Chakotay woke alone in his own quarters the next morning, having staggered home in the wee hours with barely enough energy to make the short trip down the corridor.

"You have to go," she'd told him as he was about to drift off in her bed, after several more rounds of mutually-inflicted pleasure. He didn't know why she was ordering him away, but he was in no condition to argue.

They were strictly professional through their duty shifts and avoided each other off hours for the next few days. On the third day, he came to the ready room to discuss crew evaluations. They conducted the entire conversation at her desk, rather than sitting by the viewport with warm drinks as usual.

After this exceptionally formal interaction, Chakotay stood to leave. Before he turned to go, he asked,

"Would you like to join me for dinner tonight?"

Janeway rose, straightened her uniform, and faced him, equally formal.

"No. I don't think dinner is a good idea. But I will stop by after my game of velocity with B'Elanna if you'd like a little … rematch from the other night." Some kind of challenge he couldn't understand flitted across her face.

It was on the tip of Chakotay's tongue to protest that what he really wanted was dinner with her and a chance to talk through the strange events of the last several weeks, and certainly the last few days, but then he recalled how badly talking through everything had gone. More importantly, he remembered the sight of his captain's back, wet and scattered with soap bubbles, as she leaned over the edge of the tub crying out with pleasure, urging him on. He remembered the splendid sight of her sprawled naked on her sheets. There was not a single second of that unspeakably abandoned night that he would ever forget.

And he remembered how desperately empty his quarters had felt the last few days without her. He made up his mind then and there that would accept her visits on whatever terms she was willing to offer.

"Yes, of course," he said.

Janeway straightened. "Dismissed."


	6. Chapter 6

Chakotay was reading the Dante she had lent him when Janeway arrived at his door that night, still sweaty from velocity. She gestured at her workout clothes as she stepped inside.

"I ran late," she said. "B'Elanna gave me a good match. If you'd rather that I shower first, I'll just -"

"You can shower here." Chakotay gestured toward his bathroom. "I'll throw your clothes in the fresher." Janeway took his hand and led him after her into the small room adjoining his bedroom. Facing the mirror with Chakotay behind her, she raised her hands above her head.

"Help me off with this?" she asked innocently. The top was standard Starfleet women's sport apparel, snug across the chest, nothing underneath. He lifted from the bottom and it slipped easily over her head to leave her in nothing but leggings and court shoes. Janeway turned around and lifted a foot. He obliged her by sliding off one shoe and sock, then the other, her bare chest a tantalizingly short distance from his head. When he straightened up, she turned back to the mirror, put her fingers into the top of the leggings and pushed them to her ankles, giving him an unparalleled view of the backside he admired so much. As if working independently of his brain, his hands grasped her hips. She wiggled them seductively and said to his reflection in the mirror,

"I don't mind getting a little dirtier before I get clean."

There was no part of his body that didn't want this, except for a tiny, contrary part of his brain that was protesting about this becoming like every other affair, all about sex, an unsatisfying shadow of what he really wanted with her. But he didn't seem to be able to merge his idea of traditional mating with anything remotely sexual. Maybe this was all he was capable of having with a woman. If Kathryn was willing to have it with him, shouldn't he just be grateful and stop questioning it? As he considered, she nudged her bare behind up against the tenting in his pajama pants.

"Or maybe you'd rather join me in the shower?"

It took little effort to shut down the protesting voice. He grinned back at the mirror, a smile he recognized too well from past assignations without meaning. This was not the self he wanted to offer to Kathryn Janeway, but something desperate in him was whining that he had no choice. This was all he would get of her. This was all he was worth.

"Sounds good to me," he said.

He began to pull off his clothes. In another minute, she had her legs wrapped around him as he pounded her against the shower wall. Only when he woke up alone the next morning did the small voice of reason clamor to the surface. _The stupidest man in the world_ , it accused. Chakotay turned his face into his pillow, and wept.


	7. Chapter 7

A pattern established itself over the next few weeks. Not every night, but every few days, because both of them felt the urge nearly constantly but were also very busy, Chakotay and Janeway found each other. They were too disciplined to use public areas of the ship, however isolated, or the ready room, because of its heavy professional symbolism. But in their quarters, the moment they were off duty and could slip out from other obligations, they were at each other fiercely.

Even after the terrifying days when Tuvok, then Chakotay, fell under the repressed mind control of Teero Anaydis, Chakotay could not stop himself from arriving back at Janeway's door late at night, unsure of the welcome he'd receive. There were no words at all that night, just a frantic, almost angry coupling that left them both shaking and undone. That time, she didn't have to tell him to go. There could be no cuddles and kisses after _that_. He slunk away.

Chakotay blamed himself but could not bring himself to put a stop to it, for fear it would put a stop to everything. It was as he'd predicted: perhaps from that first kiss, and certainly once these frantic trysts began, his heart belonged to her. He was desperate when he was with her and more desperate when they were apart. His greatest fear was that she would call a halt to what little he had of her now, because it was more than he'd had before.

"I am in hell," Janeway told Tuvok at a dinner she had arranged with him to keep herself from appearing at Chakotay's door for the second night in a row. Her well-practiced will power was no use to her in this. "I let down my guard after Tom and B'Elanna's wedding. Their happiness was so moving. It gave me hope that something like that might be possible with Chakotay."

"When we spoke about this, you seemed to believe that it was possible. What has changed?" Tuvok templed his hands and watched her carefully.

"That week he wanted to wait … it was so unexpected, but it felt right. His reticence surprised me, but then it charmed me too. It was lovely that he wanted to wait. What he said about mating for life and the traditions of his people captured me utterly – and then there was this unbearably awkward evening in his quarters. I've never seen him so stiff, and I'm sure my own discomfort with breaching protocol played no small role. It was a disaster."

Tuvok shifted in his chair as he contemplated her words. "Yet you and I had discussed it and agreed that this was an acceptable step to take. I told you I would make a supportive note in my personal log. I do not understand why you now perceive insurmountable barriers to the relationship," he said, in his reliably multisyllabic way.

Janeway covered her face with her hands for a second before answering. "I know, Tuvok. I know. But it was one thing to be carried away by the moment. It turned out to be quite another to make up my mind in the cold light of day to abandon Starfleet's explicit directive against fraternization. Even your support doesn't make that an easy thing."

Now Tuvok folded his hands, and Janeway wondered what message _that_ was intended to send. He was communicating in semaphores rather than the plain words she needed.

"Yet you _have_ abandoned it," he said, "without establishing the supportive pair bond you described to me. This appears to be a worse scenario than the other, both for you personally and in the hypothetical eyes of Starfleet."

Janeway groaned and dropped her head to her hand. "You don't have to tell me how badly I've messed this up. I was stiff too, and left him alone when I should have stayed with him and worked things out, and then I avoided him to the point where the least contact with him was like being struck by lightning. I should have known what would happen, but the way I _attacked_ him in my quarters that day was inexcusable."

Tuvok raised an eyebrow. "As you described the incident to me, the commander met you willingly, and participated enthusiastically."

Janeway crossed her arms. "I can't believe I'm discussing this with you, but I have to discuss it with someone or lose my mind. Tuvok, one legitimate way of seeing it is that I ordered my first officer to my quarters and forced myself on him, then compounded the crime by aggressively pursuing a furtive, hypersexual relationship that is the opposite of what we both said we wanted."

"I believe your perception is inaccurate," Tuvok said drily. "There was nothing coercive in your behavior."

Janeway waved a dismissive hand. "Whether it was or wasn't, the real problem is, I can't put an end to it. I want it too badly. If this is the only way we can have a physical relationship, my only choice is to shut off the protesting part of my brain for as long as I'm with him."

Tuvok finished his tea and cleared his throat. "Clearly, that is not your only choice. You have created a false dichotomy between ending the intimate relationship entirely and pursuing it on the problematic basis you have chosen thus far. You are being illogical. I urge you in the strongest terms to talk to Commander Chakotay about how to reach a better understanding. I will volunteer to mediate if necessary."

Janeway sat back hard in her chair as a horrifying vision filled her mind of Tuvok giving her and Chakotay relationship counseling. She had to do something before it came to that.

"I'll think about it," she offered weakly.

 _To be continued …_


	8. Chapter 8

Another problem developing was the Prixin celebration drawing ever closer. It was their chosen date, from the week of 'deliberation', to reveal their relationship to the crew. Janeway hoped that Chakotay would bring it up, but when he didn't, with the Prixin party only a few days away, she called him to her ready room. With him there in front of her, in full uniform, playing the professional role they had maintained so steadily no matter what went on at night, Janeway turned to the replicator for some hot black courage. She took a sip and turned back to him, most of the ready room between them.

"Prixin," she announced. "We have to talk about Prixin."

"You want to change the plan," Chakotay said quietly. It wasn't a question. He looked ready to back out the door onto the bridge.

"Things haven't gone … as we imagined," she answered.

He stayed near the door, hands at his sides, in a defeated posture. He looked away. "No."

"How would you suggest we handle it?" This was command school basics: seek advice.

A look of vague amusement passed over Chakotay's face but a split second later was utterly gone, replaced by despair.

"I don't know, Kathryn." He ran a hand over his brush cut. "This is all my fault."

She let the coffee cup come to rest on the saucer in her other hand. "Your fault? I'm the one who … you know, ordered you to my quarters, and …." Her voice drifted into silence, unable to finish the sentence through the fog of her guilt.

"That was the second best night of my life," Chakotay said. "Don't apologize."

"The second best? What was the best?"

He looked away again, this time in the other direction, staring a hole in the bulkhead. "The night you told me I have many admirable qualities. I wish I could remember what some of them are."

Janeway put the coffee cup on her desk and raised a hand to her forehead. "We've made a hideous mess of this, that's clear. Tuvok offered to mediate. Tuvok, of all people!"

"If it means anything, I meant every word I said that night. None of that has changed."

Janeway faced him. "Same here."

"Then what are we doing?" Chakotay demanded. Finally, he took a few steps toward her. "Couldn't we just have dinner, like we always do, and go to bed like normal people, and love each other and wake up together?"

"You wanted to wait …" Janeway began.

"I AM THE STUPIDEST MAN ALIVE!" Chakotay cried. "I should go to Sickbay to have the doctor cure me of whatever mental illness made me leave your quarters that first night. I had everything I wanted, right there, and I had to complicate things."

Janeway sighed and rubbed the surface of the desk. "I thought complicating things was my job."

Chakotay closed the distance between them. "Let me handle Prixin. As a way to make it up to you. All you have to do is show up and play along."

Janeway studied his face, which looked open and hopeful again for the first time in weeks. "Just … do whatever you have planned?"

He nodded. "Do you trust me?"

For the first time since the night of Tom and B'Elanna's wedding, she reached out to touch him in the ready room, by hooking their index fingers together. A light touch. This time it felt solid and steadying, not dangerous.

"I trust you," she said.

 _To be continued …_


	9. Chapter 9

After that moment of détente in the ready room, Janeway and Chakotay hardly spoke to each other until the night of the Prixin celebration. Janeway was overseeing the retrofit of Cargo Bay Two to remove Seven's regeneration chamber and other technology that had supported her transition from Borg to a fully human member of the crew. There would be a new science lab, and more room for hydroponic plants now that Seven had scaled down her energy consumption and moved her equipment to normal crew quarters.

Chakotay was on the bridge, watched closely by an unusually paternal Tuvok.

"Commander," Tuvok said, well before the end of the shift before the party. "If you would like more time to prepare for this evening, I am prepared to relieve you now."

Chakotay rose from the captain's chair, straightened his uniform, and nodded. "Thank you, Tuvok. I would like that."

This turn of events drew a small flurry of electronic comment by the rest of the bridge crew, but none of it reached Janeway. She was surprised, then, to hear the door chime as she selected a pair of shoes to match her dress that evening. Chakotay had mentioned nothing about escorting her to the party. She was expecting to meet him there. Instead, it was Tuvok, in dress uniform.

"What in the world?" she asked.

"I am not at liberty to say more," he told her, "but Commander Chakotay asked me to escort you to the Prixin celebration."

Janeway put a hand to her chest. "He thinks I need an escort? Does he think I won't show up?"

"It is not my place to speculate about Commander Chakotay's motivations for - "

"All right, all right, Tuvok," Janeway said as she turned back toward her bedroom to fetch her shoes. "It's not important. It's odd, but it's not important. Come on in."

"Are you ready? We will be late for the festivities if we do not leave now."

"We're not going to be late," Janeway yelled from the other room. "Just let me put my shoes on!"

When she emerged, Tuvok tucked Janeway's hand into the crook of his arm in a gesture he had never used with her. She smiled up at him, but he only faced forward with his usual impassivity and led her toward the turbolift.

They emerged onto Deck Two to find the corridor outside the mess hall decorated for the occasion in vines, berries, and intermittent flurries of holographic snow. Janeway gaped.

"Did they install new holoemitters just for the party?" she asked Tuvok.

"It would appear so," he said, without the disapproving scowl she was accustomed to see at any frivolous appropriation of the ship's scarce resources. Tuvok looked almost … pleased.

Neelix came rushing out of the mess hall the moment Tuvok and Janeway rounded the last curve in the corridor.

"Mr. Vulcan! Captain Janeway! Wait right here and I'll start the music!"

Janeway gave Tuvok a suspicious glance.

"Music? Tuvok, what are they up to? You have to tell me before I walk into a full ambush."

Tuvok planted a reassuring hand on top of Janeway's where he held it on his arm. The pair waited just outside the door as Neelix rushed back inside. In a moment, the uplifting strains of Schubert's Ave Maria began.

"Tuvok?" Janeway asked, eyes wide. "What does this mean?"

He paused and faced her. "Commander Chakotay told me that you had promised to 'show up and play along' as he put it. With that understanding, I agreed to play a part. Of course, you have no obligation to continue."

Janeway had gone rather pale. "What part – exactly – did you agree to play?"

Something resembling a smile moved on the Vulcan's mouth. "The commander asked me to bring you here and walk you down the aisle. I was honored to agree."

"The -" Janeway broke off and crept forward, letting go of Tuvok, to peek around the door frame. On the other side, the mess hall was a sparkling Prixin wonderland. There were candles, garlands, wreaths, and even an arbor of pine boughs near the viewport. Chakotay stood under the arbor in his own clothing, not a uniform. The entire crew watched the door expectantly. Janeway drew back in shock and grabbed Tuvok's arm again.

"This is a _wedding_ ," she hissed.

Tuvok nodded. "Your wedding," he confirmed. "If you choose to go in." The Schubert continued, emphasizing the passage of time.

"You knew – you _knew_ and you didn't tell me? Tuvok, how could you?" she demanded.

"Captain," he said firmly, "I confess to being somewhat bewildered by the events of the past few weeks. Both you and the commander have come to me privately to express your desire to be permanently mated, yet you seem unable to resolve the matter between yourselves. If this is not what you wish, then I must ask, what do you wish?"

Janeway pulled away from him and stood panting, hands on her hips, working hard to master her own emotions.

"I … I had always hoped …." She broke off helplessly, tears in her eyes.

"Yes?" Tuvok prompted.

"That my father would be here for this day," she finished.

Tuvok stood straighter and offered his arm yet again. "It will be my honor to serve in his place. Now - " with a glance toward the door, "I believe someone is waiting."

Slowly, so slowly that Janeway almost believed she saw a flicker of impatience in Tuvok's eyes, she lifted her hand and set it on his arm. The Schubert led them forward. When they stepped into the doorway she saw Chakotay, watching the empty space with an anxious face. When the emptiness filled suddenly with her and Tuvok, arm in arm, the look on his face lit the mess hall more brightly than all the Prixin candles. A happy sigh rose from the crew.

Janeway glanced up at Tuvok, who nodded. She glanced down. She wasn't wearing white, or her dress uniform, just a plain green dress everyone had seen before. She hadn't done any of the things she'd always thought she'd do before her wedding – before those long-planned weddings that had ended in death and the Delta quadrant. Then she thought of all the careful plans she and Chakotay had made for formalizing their relationship and what a shuttle crash that had been.

Tuvok cleared his throat. Janeway raised her head and saw all eyes on her. She was here, she realized with a start, and Chakotay was waiting, and suddenly she found that what was before her was enough, as sudden and imperfect as it was. All she had to do was summon the courage to walk into it.

She let her face melt into a smile to answer Chakotay's, and took the first step forward into the blessed unknown.

END


End file.
